Customer Reviews

Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Tsui Hark, who went to film school at the University of Texas, is one of the most influencial filmmakers of Hong Kong. In this film, he made an effort to attract Hollywood special effects artists to come to Hong Kong and not only create a visually impressive film, but also to teach his team how the effects are done. This film was the result of that effort, and it shows. By the way, the previous mention of computer effects is incorrect. Not only does this film pre-date extensive use of computer-generated effects, but the suggestion that Lightwave is made by SGI instead of Newtek is also incorrect. Zu is a fantasy film, and the influence it (and other Tsui Hark films, like A Chinese Ghost Story) has had on other filmmakers is highly evident.

Does it have a disjointed plot? Yep. Poor continuity? You bet. Incomprehensible ending? Sure. Cheesy effects? Yes again, by modern standards, anyway. Is it a massively cool film? Hell, yes!

Do not watch this movie expecting deeply moving themes, great acting, high art, or really just about anything you'd normally watch a movie for. If you do, you'll be disappointed. This is not a normal movie. Watching Zu is really more of a life Experience. Think of yourself as Winne-the-Pooh Watching Surreal Fantasy Images.

This film achieves a level of fantastic strangeness rarely equaled in live-action cinema. Where else will you see a man imprisoning an evil demon using his eyebrows, or a man chained to rocks being sucked into the mouth of hell? No, none of it makes much sense, but just go with it, and you won't regret it.

When watching this film, consider the fact that it was made in the early 80's, so adjust your views accordingly.

Having said that, Zu is a busy movie with a lot of subplots, and twists. It is enough to almost confuse the viewer. Within 3 minutes, the whole movie changes scenery while the characters change attitude.

This is one of the few films where I enjoyed Sammo Hung. His character seemed to fit the ambience of the whole film. Yuen Biao was great, as usual, and a younger Brigette Lin also adds to the cast. In addition, the cameo by Tsui Hark was a welcome surprise.

I would rent this film before you decide to purchase it. It's an older film, so if you're used to some of the later stuff, you may be disappointed.

Tsui Hark's 1983 special effects extravaganza, "Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain", was one of my all time favorite Chinese swords and sorcery movies. Using Hollywood-style special effects not seen before in Chinese cinema, "Zu: Warriors" broke new ground and created a new generation of Tsui Hark fans. Tsui would go on to create other Chinese movie classics such as the "A Chinese Ghost Story", "Swordsman" and "Once Upon A Time In China" series. So it was with great excitement that I greeted the news in 2000 that Tsui was in the process of remaking his 1983 classic for release in 2001. However, I must admit that I was absolutely disappointed when I finally got to watch "Legend of Zu" on the big screen in the summer of 2001. The plot of "Legend" is totally convoluted - it seemed Tsui was more interested in stretching the limits of what he can do with computer generated special effects than in telling a good yarn. And don't get me wrong - the special effects are mind-boggling for a Chinese movie and look fantastic on the big screen. The sheer imaginative scale of the visuals created by Tsui's special effects team is amazing - the magical Zu mountain range is innovatively presented as a series of upside-down islands floating on top of mountain peaks - words cannot quite describe the scene, you have to see it on the big screen to feel the magic Tsui has created. As most Chinese folk will tell you, the mythology of the Chinese swords and sorcery genre is full of gods, demons, superhuman powers and fantastic weapons, and "Legend" delivers all these in spades - so much so non-Chinese may be overwhelmed by seemingly nonsensical superhuman feats that make Superman's powers look like child's play. The sound effects complement the visual effects well, making "Legend" one of the best sounding Chinese movies I've seen in a long while. The Hong Kong version of the DVD that I recently bought includes a DTS soundtrack, which sounds absolutely perfect on my surround sound home theatre system. But stunning visuals and great sound do not a good movie make. While the lead actors (Ekin Cheng, Cecilia Cheung, Louis Koo and Zhang Ziyi - all great looking and talented young actors) make valiant efforts to flesh out their characters, the script's frenetic pace simply lets them down. It took me at least two viewings to grasp all of the important plot points and to understand what the story was all about. Too many special effects and not enough story telling made the whole movie look like a computer game. Three stars from me and would someone restrain Tsui the next time he shows signs of going over the top?

This movie was great. I loved the original Zu warriors, but i especially loved the effects in this one. I say this mainly because i love movies like storm riders, but because of the lack of them i commend tsui hark on making another movie of this genre. Wish i could find more like this.

Tsui Hark directed this groundbreaking special effects extravaganza (1983) which is a favorite among fans of Hong Kong's fantay genre. Features an all-star cast with names such as Yuen Biao, Sammo Hung, Meng Hoi, Brigitte Lin, Moon Lee, and Adam Cheng being the most memorable of the bunch. Although the special effects might seem amateurish by today's standards, they are still impressive considering the budget, and the sheer imagination that the film possesses makes it an exhilirating thrillride until the end.

Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain is a frenetic epic about the struggle between good and evil. Zu's roots are firmly grounded in Chinese mythology with all the cast doing very well playing "large" characters. The special effects people from Star Wars were imported to HK by Tsui Hark himself to oversee the effects for Zu. While not as polished or flashy as today's CGI the abundant visual effects from Zu are a work of art, pushing the envelope of the technology of the early 80's by using wires and animation. Zu requires more than one viewing to take it all in. A must for any Hong Kong Cinema enthusiast. And, forget the plot, just enjoy the action.

This is a very important HK film; its the first to impliment computer effects (SGI's LightWave Im told) for one thing, and yet the movie does not rely on them to any degree.. the battle scenes are as epic on occasion as the plot itself; an excursion into heroes, war, the world of martial arts, and even love.

Its simply one of the finest period piece, fantasy/martial arts movies ever made, and is frequently cited as an influence even today.

In a world being torn apart by fueding among the schools that compose the loosely defined (but ever present in the genre) 'World of Martial Arts', a young man seeks the aid of a great and mysterious master, to end the fueding and ultimately to save the world.

ZU: WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (XIN SHUSHAN JIANXIA, featuring Bridgette Lin) is a film dating back to the 1980's and is NOT to be mixed up with the much more recent LEGEND OF ZU (SHUSHAN ZHUAN, in which Zhang Ziyi appears), which appeared a couple years back, even though both are directed by Tsui Hark and both are supposed to be (I want to emphasize: SUPPOSED to be) based on a long fantasy novel entitled SHUSHAN JIANXIA (SWORDFIGHTERS OF MT SHU) by Chinese author Huanzhu Louzhu (also named Li Shoumin; 1902 ~ 1961). Many of the reviewers here seem to get mixed up between the two movies. The present review shall be on the earlier one. By the way, the novel's not yet translated into English, sorry -- even though I'm perfectly confident it's more than a match for Tolkien's trilogy in terms of content. :p (Certainly the novel has exerted a tremendous influence on later Chinese swordplay fiction, such as the work of Jin Yong or Louis Cha.)

NEITHER movie is true to the original novel (which in my estimate would require at least five long films, serious). The films aren't even condensed versions of the novel. With both movies Tsui Hark has committed the unpardonable sin of whipping together a story with elements and characters selected almost at random from the novel, possibly even adding his own stuff, and naming the resultant hodge-podge after the novel itself. To give a couple examples of how Tsui Hark's movie departs from the novel, in the novel becoming a blood monster is a strictly voluntary matter; you must go through special training :p and can't become one merely by being 'infected' by a blood monster, as happens in the movie. (I don't remember the blood monster forming a coccoon of skulls around itself in the original novel, either.) Also, in the original story the green and violet twin swords were lost treasures discovered by accident by two GIRLS, NOT guarded by a female immortal who then handed them to two BOYS, as in the (earlier) film. And that's just two examples, mate.

So does that automatically make ZU: WARRIORS OF THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN a bad film? Yes and no. Yes, because it's nothing short of sacrilege to mar a work of literature in this way. No, because the film actually does have a lot of cool and spectacular effects, such as fighting with swords of lightning ;) and the visually impressive and lovely interior of the palace/fort of the 'Ice Queen' (though I doubt these appear in the novel at all), and the film's own plot is not too bad, either (I personally would have much preferred that the 'Ice Queen' could eventually cure the hero who turned into a blood monster, though). Tsui Hark has a very annoying knack, however, for rushing the story so much that all you have to do is blink and you'll miss out on a huge chunk of what's going on. Can't you have at least a few slower and calmer moments, for Heaven's sake? (This gets even worse in LEGEND OF ZU, so much so the plot is in danger of being utterly lost to the viewer.) Also, sometimes the acting just doesn't feel emotionally appropriate. When you learn that your beloved martial arts teacher is in danger of turning into a blood monster and no one can do anything to help, what would you feel? How would you act? The one playing the role of the teacher's disciple in the film acted like a stupid idiot at the point of learning that hard truth. Really. Tsui Hark really should have known better, for goodness' sake. Also, would you not feel at least some sorrow when learning of your teacher's death, even though he has turned into an evil creature? In the film, the idiot apparently didn't. Yeah, he died, now let's move on. Sure, right.

My overall assessment: superb graphics, passable plot, atrocious handling of human emotions. And that's not taking into consideration the violence done to the original novel.

Seminal in 1983 for its amalgamation of special effects, wire-work, and kung-fu, now "Zu" looks like an antique whose wrinkles are glaringly obvious next to today's wire-fu/fantasy films ("Crouching Tiger," "Storm Riders"). Hark, like his contemporary Western counterpart Spielberg, ranges from the sublime to the subterranean, and "Zu" falls just short of his worst attempts (i.e. "The Master," "Once Upon in China 3"). However, Hark's visual palette with vast array of vibrant colors create a few striking tableaus that make "Zu" moderately interesting. But in the end, the lack of kung-fu and an engaging story leads to a big superfluous mound of color and chaos, which will only please the most diehard Hark or Hong Kong fan. BTW: Check out Hark's finest, "Peking Opera Blues," "The Blade," and "Time and Tide," for the best cinema has to offer from the last fifteen years.

It is true that this film's plot is inelegant. It's also true that its pacing is so frenetic that you're in danger of cardiac arrest long before the climax, and it's true that characterisation doesn't feature greatly either. But I don't think that's the idea with this film, or many other films in the genre.The flow of the plot in Zu is like a fever dream: confused in places, some parts recurring, some parts brushed over. Some parts make very little sense at all, like the wonderful battle in the temple where the editting is so frantic that the viewer never quite knows what is going on. You get this wonderful impressionistic blur from watching Zu, sort of Monet with kung fu.Compared to an HK fantasy film with a good plot (say Stormriders) Zu looks flakey and inconsistent. However I find Zu utterly arresting visually, whereas Stormriders is just one comicbook cliche after another. (Though Stormriders was based on a comic that's still no excuse!)The stylism of the sets is great, the sound effects are very innovative for its time... oh, it's just a fantastic film all round.